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THE 



CONDITION OF THE SOUTH, 



AND THE 



DUTY OF THE NORTH 



AS SET FORTH I\ A LETTER FROM 



GEN. T. SEYMOUR 



LATELY RELEASED PROM "UNDER FIRE," AT CHARLESTON. 



N E W Y O R K . 

] 8 6 4. 



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The followiug deeply interesting letter is from the pen of Gen. 
Truman Seymour, lately released from " under fire " at Charles- 
ton, S. C. As an old West Point officer, with Gen. Andep^son at 
Sumter, and stationed many years at the South, he knows the 
Southern i^eople well. He is a brave, true soldier, devoted to the 
Union, and although at the time of the unfortunate battle in 
Florida he was accused of lukewarmness by those ignorant of his 
character, he has proved, by his actions on many a battle-field, as 
well as by his plucky talk to the rebels at Gordonsville, when 
captured in May last, that he was every inch loyal to the old 



"WlLLIAMSTOWN, MaSS., 

August 15th, 1864. 
My Dear Sir— 

You ask for my impressions of the present condi- 
tion of the Southern Confederacy, and you shall have 
them. For the benefit of our cause, I wish they might 
be impressed upon every soul in the land, that the confi- 
dence begotten of my three months' observations in the 
interior of the South might be shared by every man who 
has the least connection with the responsibilities of this 
struggle. And I am sure that these opinions are not 
peculiar to myself. Every one of the fifty officers just 
exchanged will express the same — every one of our men, 
whether from Ihe jails of Charleston or the pens of Ma- 
con and Andersonville, will confidently tell the same 
story. 



The rebel cause is fast failing from exhaustion. Their 
two grand armies Lave been reinforced this summer from 
the last resources of the South. From every corner of 
the land, every old man and every boy capable of bear 
ing a rifle, has been impressed, willingly or unwillingly, 
and hurried to the front. Lee's army was the first so 
strengthened — it was at the expense of Hood's. Gov- 
ernor Brown told the trath with a plainness tliat was 
very bitter, but it was none the less the truth. Let me 
extract a few prominent statements from his proclama- 
tion of July 9th, addressed to the " Reserved Militia of 
Georgia :" — 

" A late correspondence with the President of the Con- 
federate States satisfies my mind that Georgia is to be 
left to her own resources to supply the reinforcements to 
General Johnson's army, which are indispensable to the 
protection of Atlanta, and to prevent the State from 
being overrun by the overwhelming numbers now under 
command of the Federal general upon our soil. 

"But there is need of further reinforcements, as will 
be seen by the accompanying letter of General Johnston ; 
* * * * and it becomes my duty to call forth every 
man in the State able to bear arms, as fast as they can 
be armed, to aid in the defence of our homes, our altars, 
and the graves of our ancestors. * 

" If the Confederate government will not send the large 
cavalry force (now engaged in raiding and in repelling 



3 

raids) to destroy the long line of railroads over which 
General Sherman brings his supplies from Nashville, and 
thus compel him to retreat, v/ith the loss of most of his 
army, the people of Georgia, xoho have already been 
drawn upon more heavily in proportion to population 
than those of any other State i?i the Confederacy^ must, 
at all hazzards and at any sacrifice, rush to the front. 

" If General Johnston's army is destroyed, the Gulf 
States are thrown open to the enemy, and we are ruined.'* 

There must indeed have been desperate weakness when 
Georgia, and the Southern cause with it, were so neglected, 
that Lee's army might be made equal to the task of hold- 
ing Grant to the Potomac or the James, and the people 
of the South are intelligent enough to understand and to 
appreciate the fact — and they have lost heart accordingly. 

The following is from a letter written by one rebel to 
another, that accidentally fell into the hands of one of my 
fellow-prisoners, and for the authenticity of which I 
vouch : — 

" Very few persons are preparing to obey the late call 
of the governor. His summons will meet with no re- 
sponse here. The people are soul-sick and heartily tired 
of this hateful, hopeless strife. They would end it if they 
could, but our would-be rulers will take good care that 
no opportunity be given the people to vote against it. 
By lies, by fraud and by chicanery this revolution was in 
angurated — by force, by tyranny and the suppression of 



truth it is sustained. It is nearly time that it should 
end — and of sheer depletion it must end before long. 
We have had enough of want and of woe — enough of 
cruelty and carnage — enough of cripples and corpses. 
There is an abundance of bereaved parents, weeping 
widows, and orj^haned children in the land : if we can, 
let us not increase the number. The men who, to ag- 
grandize themselves, or to gratify their own political 
ambition, brought this cruel war upon a peaceful and 
prosperous country, will have to render a fearful account 
of their misdeeds to a wronged, robbed, and outraged 
people. Earth has no punishment sufficiently meet for 
their villany here, and hell will hardly be hot enough to 
scathe them hereafter !" 

There is certainly no small proportion of the Southern 
people (despite the lying declarations of their journals — 
as we had good occasion to learn) that not only favors 
the progress of our arms, but that daily prays that this 
exterminating war may very soon be brought to a 
finahty by our complete and perfect success. They have 
had too much of despotism — not enough of the triumph 
promised them. Many intelligent Southern gentlemen 
do, indeed, express strong hopes of their ultimate inde- 
pendence, but such hope is not shared by the masses. 
Disappointed from the first in not having been acknow- 
ledged by foreign powers— more bitterly disappointed in 
their general expectation that Northern cowardice or dis 



sension would secure their ends — but a single chance 
remains, and that is in the result of our next election for 
president. If a Democrat succeeds to Mr. Lincoln, they 
profess to feel sure of negotiation, and their Confederacy. 
They believe a Democrat will be elected. In Mr. Lin- 
coln's re-election they see only subjugation, annihilation — 
for the war must then continue, and continuance is their 
failure and ruin. 

In military affairs it is an excellent rule never to do 
what the enemy desires : is it not equally true in politics ? 

Certain it is that the only remaining hope of the South 
lies in Mr. Lincoln's defeat. 

Now I am not enough of a politician to know whether 
the election of a Democrat can result as favorably to the 
South as it anticipates. The wish alone may be the pa- 
rent of their belief But I assured all who expressed that 
belief, that the North, as a mass, is as united as the 
South ; that no Democrat could be elected on a peace 
platform ; and that any president who would inaugurate 
any measure leading to peace on the basis of Southern 
independence would be promptly hung, by loyal acclama- 
tion, to the lamp-post in fi'ont of his own presidential 
mansion. 

However that may be, if we are but true to ourselves 
there can be but one result. What we now need is men — 
only men. Not substitutes or hirelings, who go forth 
for any motive but the country's good, and produce but 



little effect beyond depreciating our armies — but men — 
such as really constitute the state, and boast of being 
freemen, and the sons of freemen. Yet if these fail to sup- 
port their country's cause in her hour of peril tliey are 
unworthy of continuing freemen, and should blush ever 
to exercise a freeman's privileges. 

But if bounties must be paid, let it be in Southern 
land — not in Northern gold — and armies of emigrants, 
whose sons may aspire to even the rule of the nation, will 
cross the seas to win the broad acres that disloyalty has 
forfeited to the state. 

To every intelHgent soldier who has fouglit through 
all these indecisive campaigns, on almost numberless in. 
decisive fields, the question constantly arises, with touch- 
ing force, why we do not overwhelm our enemies? 

Tens of thousands of lives are lost because our array 
of strength is so disproportionately less than that against 
whicli we battle. Everywhere we meet on nearly equal 
terms, where we might well have four to one. The cost 
to us in blood and treasure, of a prolonged war, can 
hardly be foreseen : the economy is infinite of such an 
effort as the glorious North should put forth. The South 
will fight as long as the struggle is equal — it will submit 
to such preponderance as we should show on every field. 
Glance at the summer's campaigns. 

If Sherman had but 50,000 or 75,000 more men, the 
South would be lost, because Hood would be annihilated. 



If Meade had moved in the spring with reserves of 75,000 
to 100,000 men, Lee would have been hopelessly crushed. 

Even at this moment, a third column of 40,000 to 
50,000, rightly moved, would give unopposed blows to 
the Confederacy, from which she could never rise. 

What folly, then, to struggle on in this way, when we 
can send to the field five times the force already there. 
What weakness, to think we cannot conquer the South. 
Behind the James, only boys and old men are to be seen, 
while here men buy and sell as in the olden days of quiet, 
and regiments of able-bodied citizens crowd the streets 
of our cities. There is but one course consistent with 
Northern safety or honor. Let the people awake to a 
sense of their dignity and strength, and a few months of 
comparatively trifling exertion, of such efibrt as alone is 
worthy of the great North, and the rebellion will crumble 
before us. Fill this draft promptly and willingly, with 
good and true men : send a few spare thousands over 
rather than under the call, and the summer sun of 1865 
will shine upon a regenerated land. 

There are some who speak of peace ! — Of all Yankees^ 
the Southron most scorns those who do not fight — but 
are glad enough to employ them, as they do their slaves, 
to perform their dirty work. Peace for the South will 
be sweet indeed ; for us, except through Southern subju- 
gation, but anarchy and war forever. The Pacific, the 
Western, the Eastern States, would at once fall asunder. 



8 

The South would be dominant ; and the people of the 
North would deserve to be driven afield, under negro 
overseers, to hoe corn and cotton for Southern masters. 

But no faint-hearted or short-siglUed policy can set 
aside the eternal decree of the Almighty, who has planted 
no lines of division between the Atlantic and the western 
deserts — between the great lakes and the Gulf of Mexi- 
co, — that signify His will that we should be separated : 
and unless so separated, peace is a delusion, and its advo- 
cacy a treason against the wisest and holiest interests of 
our country. 

It has been with a trust that renewed hope and vigor 
might be given, where vigor and hope are needful, that 
I have written, and you have my consent to using this as 

you please. 

And I am, very truly, yours, 

T. Seymour, 
Brig.-Gen. U. S. Vols. 

Mr. W. E. D., Jr., 

New York. 



W60 



THE DUTY OF THE HOUE. 

"Wf suppose that every man and woman in the land knows that the 
armies of the Union which are actively engaged in their heroic efforts 
to crush out this Southern rebellion, are greatly in need of reinforce- 
ment. Lieut.-G-en. Grant himself has but recently declared that " if 
he had now hut a hundred thousand fresh men he could, in fifty days, do 
up all the fighting that needs to he done during the war^ " This," wrote 
our Washington correspondent the other day, " is no shallow hearsay ; 
it is the authentic declaration of the high name given ; and the senti- 
ment is affirmed by every military man I have lately met." 

Think of this, ye who long for peace ! Think of it. ye who desire 
a restored Union ! Think of it, brave young men, and all who are 
patriots or lovers of American liberty I And do not only think of it, 
but take such action as the thought and the circumstances require. If 
this generation are worthy of the glorious Union which their f-itlicrs 
formed, and t]:e freedom wliicli their fathers fought for, let them now, 
in the moment of the Union's greatest need, in the day of Freedom's 
peril, prove it by the course they adopt. 

Grant says "but a hundred thousand fresh men." What is this to 
the twenty-two millions of the North ? To this great, populous Em- 
pire State of New York it is less than twenty thousand men. Had 
we the right spirit, this city alone ought to put that force in the field 
in a week. 

In fifty days we may have peace. This is no flippant prophecy, but 
it is the asseveration of a man who, more than any other, knows tlie 
whole mihtary power of this rebellion — who has fouglit its greatest 
armies in Tennessee, in Mississippi, in Georgia, and in Virginia — who 
has confronted its greatest leaders, assailed and captured its strongest 
positions, and routed on a dozen fields its largest armies " In fifty 
days " — before the mellow sun of the coming October passes away, 
before the frosts of Winter are upon us, he "can do up all the fighting 
that needs to be done during the war" — if we will but give him the 
reinforcements which we can so easily furnish. Will the country re- 
spond ? Will you do your duty in the cri'^is, patriotic read-r? 




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